In view of the expected gas shortages during winters the government is planning to offer lower electricity rates to domestic and commercial consumers to encourage space heating through power instead of Gas.
Energy Minister Hammad Azhar on his official twitter account said “Min of Energy is moving a proposal for seasonal energy pricing for domestic & commercial consumers to encourage power consumption during off-peak months. The success of Industrial Energy Package demonstrates that such incentives provide relief & absorb part of surplus capacity.”
Gas companies have been struggle to meet demand in winter months, and consequently had been compelled to provide highly expensive imported LNG (liquefied natural gas) to domestic and commercial consumers at highly subsidised rates to avoid political upheaval. Resultantly, the gas sector’s circular debt had gone beyond Rs150 billion and would further increase rapidly because of rising LNG prices.
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Power Tabish Gauhar says that even at the existing electricity and gas tariffs, if 300,000 three-phase consumers were to switch from gas to electricity AC Inverter for space heating, “we could potentially see a 300MW increase in power demand and 50mmcfd decrease in gas usage”.
This would solve the gas shortage issue as well as provide consumption of electricity for almost 25,000MW of “committed” power projects in the pipeline or under construction, whose electricity need to be consumed during off-peak months.
